we are 100% getting a mike wheeler breakdown in volume 2.
i know i've already said this but he is going to crack like an egg. he is bottling up so much and he is going to explode.
mike has every reason to be crashing out this season, but he's holding it together, taking on a leadership role, coming up with plans and theories.
mike seems surprisingly unbothered about his parents being hospitalized, at least compared to nancy - nancy breaks down with guilt and concern, while mike is holding it together, focused on action.
his sister got kidnapped after he told her monsters aren't real, and while he's working hard to get her back, we see no emotional fallout of feeling responsible.
all of this being so reminiscent of the first time, with will in 1983, digging up all the trauma of his best friend getting abducted and seeing them pull his body out of the quarry, yet we never see him panic.
he leads a group of children through a warzone and doesn’t stop protecting them, telling them “eyes on me” to be a rock for them despite surely being terrified himself.
and that's what i want to emphasize here: mike is scared shitless. he tells holly this in the crawl when she doubts he could be scared:
more than that, he tells holly HOW he is holding it together: he’s putting on a mask. mike the brave.
and yes, it's working. he’s leading, and he’s brave - he's faking-it-til-he-makes-it, and he is, as will says, the heart. he IS coming into his own, and it’s amazing to see, but it’s so so important to me that he’s doing it scared, and more importantly, that he's not going to hold it together forever.
he is going to hit a breaking point. and we are going into volume two with, yes, the relative win of will’s new powers, but also with some devastating losses: the kids were taken, holly is still gone, el and others are still awol in the upside down, dozens died, and vecna seems more unstoppable than ever.
after such a huge midpoint turn, there will need to be a heavy reaction beat for the characters to regroup, think everything through, and figure out how to move forward. during this time we’ll see a handful of necessary heart-to-hearts. and i hope to god that during that time we see mike wheeler be vulnerable and honest.
we also have this from the trailer, where mike approaches joyce who is sitting with an unconscious will. i'm guessing this is the aftereffects of overexerting his new powers, and will being hurt/unconscious after such a big reveal is the perfect catalyst for mike to finally BREAK.
joyce and mike are the two characters who (along with jonathan) love will the most and are most beloved to him. mike and joyce were the ones who always believed will was alive in season 1 and who fought hardest for will in season 2. my hope is they will bond over worrying for and loving will, and that mike will admit he's terrified rather than trying to hold it together forever.
it's so beautiful seeing mike be mike the brave, but we also must see him just being mike.
and like a geode, if we want to see what he's made of, he must break.
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